Movies like Kabei: Our Mother (2008)
The best movies like Kabei: Our Mother (2008) are Tombstone of the Fireflies (2008), Grave of the Fireflies (2005) and The Sun (2005). If Kabei: Our Mother hooked you with its family and drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedTokyo Story (1953)8.1/10 from 1,290 votes
- NewestA Man (2022)Released 2022
- In JapaneseTombstone of the Fireflies (2008)Also in Japanese
Tombstone of the Fireflies (2008)
Set during World War II, the film follows a young brother and sister as they attempt to survive the aftermath of the firebombing of Kobe City.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Grave of the Fireflies (2005)
Hisako loses her home in Tokyo to Allied bombing. With her husband fighting somewhere in Asia, she and her two children evacuate to a suburb of Kobe, where they share a house with Hisako's cousin, Kyoko. Kobe is bombed and Kyoko is killed. Hisako is forced to take care of Kyoko's two children in addition to her own, but there is not enough food for everyone.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Sun (2005)
A re-imagination of Japanese Emperor Hirohito’s final days in power as WWII draws to a close.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlack Rain (1989)
Shigematsu Shizuma, who lives with his family in a village near Fukuyama, was in Hiroshima with his wife and niece just after the devastating atomic bombing, a tragedy that cruelly took the lives of thousands of people and forever marked the harsh existence of the survivors.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHope and Glory (1987)
A middle-aged man recalls his childhood growing up in and around London during World War II.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & family
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNo Regrets for Our Youth (1946)
After her anti-fascist professor father is dismissed, Yukie navigates love, political repression, and wartime upheaval—ultimately forging her own path in pre- and post-WWII Japan.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIn This Corner of the World (2016)
Japan, 1943, during World War II. Young Suzu leaves her village near Hiroshima to marry and live with her in-laws in Kure, a military harbor. Her creativity to overcome deprivation quickly makes her indispensable at home. Inhabited by an ancestral wisdom, Suzu impregnates the simple gestures of everyday life with poetry and beauty. The many hardships, the loss of loved ones, the frequent air raids of the enemy, nothing alters her enthusiasm…
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisKayoko's Diary (1991)
Kayoko is a young girl in 1940, just starting first grade. Nothing can prepare her for 1945, and the bleak times that are soon to come.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Flight of the Red Balloon (2008)
The first part in a new series of films produced by Musée d'Orsay, 'Flight of the Red Balloon' tells the story of a French family as seen through the eyes of a Chinese student. The film was shot in August and September 2006 on location in Paris. This is Hou Hsiao-Hsien's first Western film. It is based on the classic French short The Red Balloon directed by Albert Lamorisse.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both family & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Only Son (1936)
A rural widow sends her only son to Tokyo to receive a better education. Years later, she visits him and finds he has become a night school teacher struggling to support his wife and son.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRhapsody in August (1991)
An elderly Nagasaki hibakusha spends a summer caring for her four grandchildren, whose curiosity about the 1945 bombing stirs buried memories and moral questions. When an American nephew from Hawaii visits, the family confronts grief, guilt, and the possibility of reconciliation across generations.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisShoplifters (2018)
In the outskirts of Tokyo, a poor but close-knit group living on the fringes of society survives through shoplifting and odd jobs. When Osamu and his son take in a neglected young girl, their already fragile existence begins to unravel. As the family grows attached to her, buried secrets surface, forcing them to confront the true meaning of love, belonging, and what makes a family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLate Spring (1949)
Noriko is perfectly happy living at home with her widowed father, Shukichi, and has no plans to marry -- that is, until her aunt Masa convinces Shukichi that unless he marries off his 27-year-old daughter soon, she will likely remain alone for the rest of her life. When Noriko resists Masa's matchmaking, Shukichi is forced to deceive his daughter and sacrifice his own happiness to do what he believes is right.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisA Hen in the Wind (1948)
Tokiko patiently awaits her husband's return from WWII when her four-year old son falls ill. She takes him to the doctor but has no means of paying, so she resorts to prostitution. A month later, her husband returns to find his desperate wife, who tells him the truth. Together, they must deal with the consequences.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAn Autumn Afternoon (1962)
Widower Shuhei Hirayama's caretaker is his 24-year-old daughter, Michiko. Gradually, he comes to realize that Michiko should not be obliged to look after him for the rest of his life, so he arranges a marriage for her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisTokyo Story (1953)
The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisMOTHER (2020)
Shuhei is leading a tough life. His alcoholic mother Akiko can only hook up with bad guys and order Shuhei to go get money from his disapproving grandparents instead of going to school. Except raising the little half-sister, his rock-bottom life seems to have no end.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNobody Knows (2004)
In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisMaborosi (1995)
A tragedy strikes a young woman's life without warning or reason. She continues living while searching for meaning in a lonely world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Man (2022)
Akira works as a lawyer. One day, he meets with his former client Rie, who asks Akira to perform a background check on her late husband Daisuke.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTokyo Twilight (1957)
Two sisters learn about the existence of their long-lost biological mother, but the younger is unable to accept the fact that she was abandoned as a child.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisConfessions (2010)
Devastated at the death of her four-year-old daughter, a grieving middle school teacher is horrified to discover that her students aren't as innocent as she thinks.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952)
The arranged marriage between a capricious woman from Tokyo high society and a quiet rustic man is tested by a marital crisis.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAfter the Storm (2016)
Ryota is an unpopular writer although he won a literary award 15 years ago. Now, Ryota works as a private detective. He is divorced from his ex-wife Kyoko and he has an 11-year-old son Shingo. His mother Yoshiko lives alone at her apartment. One day, Ryota, his ex-wife Kyoko, and son Shingo gather at Yoshiko's apartment. A typhoon passes and the family must stay there all night long.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEarly Summer (1951)
In postwar Tokyo, Noriko lives with her extended family. Although she enjoys her career and her social life, her more traditional family worries about her single marital status at the advanced age of 28. 40-year-old business associate Takako proposes, Noriko's family press her into accepting, but when her widowed childhood friend Kenkichi returns to the neighborhood, she finds her heart leading in another direction.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisBarefoot Gen 2 (1986)
Three years after the Hiroshima bombing, a teenager helps a group of orphans to survive and find their new life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAlan & Naomi (1992)
When Naomi, a young refugee from Nazi-occupied Paris, moves into Alan Silverman’s building in New York, he does his best to avoid her. But despite Naomi's strange behavior and the language barrier, they slowly develop a deep and touching friendship.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & family
Bharata (TBA)
Embarrassed about his identity and culture, a meek Indian high-schooler decides to attend an American university to pursue his passion for film. But in doing so, he causes a rift in his fundamentalist family.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & family
Veer-Isha Nu Seemant (2022)
A Couple decides to have no kids after their marriage and stick to it till death does them apart, but their families and society have expectations from them, making it difficult for their marriage. Will they able to stick to their plan?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & family
Lost in Translation (2003)
Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Kabei: Our Mother?
The closest matches to Kabei: Our Mother are Tombstone of the Fireflies (2008), Grave of the Fireflies (2005) and The Sun (2005). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Kabei: Our Mother?
People who watched Kabei: Our Mother most often go on to Tombstone of the Fireflies (2008), Grave of the Fireflies (2005) and The Sun (2005).
What is the highest-rated movie like Kabei: Our Mother?
Tokyo Story (1953), rated 8.1/10 by 1,290 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Kabei: Our Mother?
A Man (2022) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Japanese movies like Kabei: Our Mother?
Yes: Tombstone of the Fireflies (2008), Grave of the Fireflies (2005) and Black Rain (1989).
How are movies similar to Kabei: Our Mother chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Kabei: Our Mother, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.